Years ago, I worked at an independent bookstore in Tucson, AZ called The Book Mark. Larry was one of our regular customers. Sweet guy, friendly as can be. He wouldn't do book signings, but he'd sign copies of his books while he was there so we could label them "autographed copies." He'd come in and drop $2000-3000 easy on books -- all subjects, fiction and non-fiction, although mostly non-fiction. I remember him buying some hella expensive art books and thinking I'd never be able to afford one, let alone five or six at a time.

Try Riders of the Purple Sage. Well, not if you're Mormon. But it is a really well-written book. Larry McMurtry is a new-school, not old-old school western writer. My grandpa had a huge collection of Zane Grey and Louis L'Amour books. If I ran out of reading material when I was staying with grandma and grandpa, I'd read one of the old horse operas. Some of them were really good, and Riders of the Purple Sage, on top of having one of the best titles ever, is one of the most vivid stories I've ever read.

DeaH:Galileo's Daughter: "Lonesome Dove" is best old west novel I've ever read.

Try Riders of the Purple Sage. Well, not if you're Mormon. But it is a really well-written book. Larry McMurtry is a new-school, not old-old school western writer. My grandpa had a huge collection of Zane Grey and Louis L'Amour books. If I ran out of reading material when I was staying with grandma and grandpa, I'd read one of the old horse operas. Some of them were really good, and Riders of the Purple Sage, on top of having one of the best titles ever, is one of the most vivid stories I've ever read.

I second the recommendation. Zane Grey might just be the best landscape author ever - that is, describing the view of the land, making you feel like you're there.

BigMevy:Galileo's Daughter: "Lonesome Dove" is best old west novel I've ever read.

My favorite TV mini-series as well. They did a heck of a job on that one.

One of the few movies where men are permitted to tear up while watching. Gus McCrae's dying words - "It's been quite a party, ain't it?" always does it to me.

kroonermanblack:Can anyone tell me who this guy is? Don't recognize the name, but I stick to fantasy/sci-fi mostly, and I skimmed the article but didn't see it mentioned.

Short answer: he's a writer. He wrote The Last Picture Show, Terms of Endearment, and Lonesome Dove, which were all successful books. He also wrote the screenplays for the movies/miniseries based on the same, which made him a lot of money.

In the 1970s, he started buying up his hometown of Archer City, Texas, which was becoming a ghost town. He then opened a bookstore in a series of buildings in town, eventually becoming the largest used bookstore in the US and a tourist attraction whcih helped keep the town alive.

He's now getting older, selling the stock of the bookstore, and "retiring."

He's generally thought of a as "Western" writer, but he has a sensitivity that most Western writers lack. For instance? He wrote the screenplay for Brokeback Mountain.

Dwight_Yeast:kroonermanblack: Can anyone tell me who this guy is? Don't recognize the name, but I stick to fantasy/sci-fi mostly, and I skimmed the article but didn't see it mentioned.

Short answer: he's a writer. He wrote The Last Picture Show, Terms of Endearment, and Lonesome Dove, which were all successful books. He also wrote the screenplays for the movies/miniseries based on the same, which made him a lot of money.

In the 1970s, he started buying up his hometown of Archer City, Texas, which was becoming a ghost town. He then opened a bookstore in a series of buildings in town, eventually becoming the largest used bookstore in the US and a tourist attraction whcih helped keep the town alive.

He's now getting older, selling the stock of the bookstore, and "retiring."

He's generally thought of a as "Western" writer, but he has a sensitivity that most Western writers lack. For instance? He wrote the screenplay for Brokeback Mountain.

That's all sorts of amazing and awesome rolled into one.

Can I ask an entirely unrelated question that's been bugging me lately? Back roughly 10 years ago I read a trashy sci-fi fantasy novel roughly based on the Norse mythology, which involved some type of time travelling astronauts and mechanized combat armor (very similar to the Halo armor in description and function). Does that ring a bell with anyone else? Been trying to figure out what it was for quite a while.

Lonesome Dove was being advertised a few years ago, so I made plans to sit and watch it. My kids are much too young to have ever seen it, so I was telling them little bits to get them interested. My husband gives me the weirdest look when I asked him for help. He was stationed overseas when it aired originally, so it was a complete surprise to him as well. The full roller-coaster of emotions still packs a wallop. Probably the best miniseries ever, and definitely the only one that gets hauled out regularly now that we bought it.

My family personally knows Larry McMurtry, he had coowned a bookstore with my aunt in Washington DC. It closed down years ago. He dedicated his book Terms of Endearment to my aunt and my grandmother. With a lot of bookstores closing now a days I'm not surprised that he is closing his other bookstores down.

lasercannon:My family personally knows Larry McMurtry, he had coowned a bookstore with my aunt in Washington DC. It closed down years ago. He dedicated his book Terms of Endearment to my aunt and my grandmother. With a lot of bookstores closing now a days I'm not surprised that he is closing his other bookstores down.

He was able to hold on as long as he did because his stores were an attraction (as is Archer City; it's where Last Picture Show was filmed) and it wasn't his main source of income.

Okay, based on y'all's recommendations I'm going to have to bump a few of his books to the top of my to-read list. Somehow I haven't read one yet. I'm always quoting his son James' song lyrics in Fark threads...

DeaH:Galileo's Daughter: "Lonesome Dove" is best old west novel I've ever read.

Try Riders of the Purple Sage. Well, not if you're Mormon. But it is a really well-written book. Larry McMurtry is a new-school, not old-old school western writer. My grandpa had a huge collection of Zane Grey and Louis L'Amour books. If I ran out of reading material when I was staying with grandma and grandpa, I'd read one of the old horse operas. Some of them were really good, and Riders of the Purple Sage, on top of having one of the best titles ever, is one of the most vivid stories I've ever read.